Dear Father
by Meowbowwow
Summary: Hamish's letter to John.
1. Chapter 1

_Dear Father,_

_I see his silhouette on the window when I come back, Mrs. Hudson leaves him his morning cup that he never drinks. It's become a ritual now, me coming back and him hearing my footsteps and sitting down staring at the television when both of us know that he was watching your picture a while ago, talking to it. It's an unspoken ritual, we never discuss it but it envelopes the very being of 221B. _

_I found a nice apartment, bought it to surprise him, it's not that I'm in a hurry to forget you, it will never be but I just want him to move on. I never really expected him to even come and see it but he did. And he took a tour, deducing things in his mind. He never deduces aloud anymore. Once he did, the first time I saw him work, the first time I saw how his mind ripples with everything his eyes inhale, I said 'fantastic' audibly. I couldn't hold it in, it was so bloody brilliant but I've never seen him freeze like the way he did. He was walking and he turned at looked at me but I knew that he wasn't really looking at me. He was looking beyond my soul, he was looking at something I can only guess but never know. We took the apartment but we never moved out. _

_The skull is back but no one complains about it, not even Mrs. Hudson, I quite like it though. He says that he used to talk to it, once upon a time but then it was replaced by someone who could never be replaced. _

_After you, I moved into his room because I heard him screaming in his dreams in the middle of the night once. I never once thought that it affected him as much as it affected me, I could never even imagine him to be so vulnerable, to be so human. You might think I sound insane but I never pictured him like this, clutched into a ball and shaking. I started sleeping next to him, tucking him in and he never questioned me once. I thought it was a mark of trust._

_We don't talk much or go out that often but the conversations are always there. You are there in the silences that are so comfortable that we sleep in their wake. Your room still smells like you or perhaps it's an illusion of my mind. He says my impressions on the bed are the same as yours, that I sleep exactly like you did and wake up the same. I like it when he tells me stuff like that._

_I was almost expelled for pointing out my teacher's inadequacies and he looked at me like he was so proud and then shrugged it off like he thought it was wrong to be proud. He never went to talk to my teacher when he received the complaint; they took me back after a few weeks. The same evening, we shared my first beer with Uncle Greg and Anderson. _

_I never asked this before, do Anderson and Dad have some huge feud? They don't talk but I see his jaw clench every time Anderson speaks a word. Uncle Mycroft gifted me a pocket watch for my last birthday, he says it was yours. I gave it to Dad and was rewarded with a rare smile._

_You might think about the purpose of this letter. Well, today on your 5__th__ death anniversary, we visited your grave and Dad sat down and cried. I don't know how to put this in any other words but it was perhaps one of the most painful breakdowns I have seen, he just sat there first and in moments, his head was in his hands and tears streamed down his face. He said some things, many things, he talked for hours to you, to me and then to himself. I don't even remember half of what he said, I just looked at him and I cried too. _

_We hugged each other and we cried. And we remembered you, every single day with you, every single moment that you sat and you breathed and you laughed._

_We miss you._

_Love_

_Hamish_


	2. Chapter 2

_**This is a separate post in itself but also a continuation to the 'Dear father' fanfic.**_

Dear _John_,

_There is a dark fabric stretched taut over my eyes and a tear that shows my heart, that the fabric is really my skin all mottled up and burnt from lack of feelings. My eyes still shine though, occasionally when he comes back with a sample of mud from Mrs. Turner's backyard and goes on to give a detailed analysis of exactly how many people have been there, what possible places they have been to and what places they might be visiting the next day. And sometimes he comes back with half a piece of a blueberry muffin, tucked inside foil and left on the desk, sometimes it is the only thing I eat in days. Sometimes it is the only thing I want._

_There is a part of kitchen that he has already reserved for himself, where he bends down, a younger self of me looking through my microscope and muttering to himself, I now know how weird I must have looked to you, I can deduce it all at ease for time stretches beyond my reach, into oblivion, a horizon that ends with my brow and once begun at your fingertips. It's lonely beyond measure._

_Yet, in all this confusion, he is you. He is considerate and has people who love him, love and not just respect. He is courteous to Mycroft, something I could never manage. Mycroft gave him your pocket watch which he gave to me. So young and so wise, I don't need the watch though. Time has frozen. He once brought an injured dog back and nursed it to health, I would wake up and hear him tottering around the living room with his school bag on one shoulder and the dog balanced precariously on top of his lunch. He enjoys Italian food, by the way; you again. _

_There are times when I hear him walk up the stairs, he shops for groceries every weekend and when he comes up, I hear his footsteps and I know it's you. I know you walk within him, you step into his shoes and replace the very air of a flat that long ceased to be home. He bought a house, it was lovely but none of us made to replace the white void that lingers in the air almost as much as the silences. The silences are comfortable but they are long, they stretch across cemeteries and headstones and blow dust off graves that are forgotten. We never moved out._

_I couldn't sleep but I never wanted him to know that I was weak, vulnerable, incapable to function without you. But he, like you, knew it. I don't know how but one day I woke up to find him curled up next to me, his head on the back of my neck, sleeping with his midnight curls all over his face. I gently shifted to make him comfortable and he put his arm around me and clung on, as much as I clung on to him. That was peaceful. The nightmares stopped after that, peace slowly curled under toes and smoked up our systems with sunshine. We were damp before, now we're moist and warm. We are un-cold. We are un-dead._

_It's 5 years today, 5 years to the day that you left, thrashing and unwilling, teary and giving even in the wake of death. 5 years since I cried again, I saw your headstone "Father, Husband and Friend" and I broke down. For once, I didn't feel embarrassed, I didn't feel the need to hide. In fact, I felt it necessary, I felt it essential for both of us to witness how it hurt me. We hugged each other and we cried._

_We miss you._

_Love always,_

_Sherlock_


End file.
